EXPLANATIONS AND SAILING DIRECTIONS TO ACCOMPANY THE WIND AND CURRENT CHARTS — SEVENTH EDITION, WITH A CONTEMPORARY OBITUARY SCRAPBOOK FOR M.F. MAURY, OWNED BY WM. LEWIS MAURY

EXPLANATIONS AND SAILING DIRECTIONS TO ACCOMPANY THE WIND AND CURRENT CHARTS — SEVENTH EDITION, WITH A CONTEMPORARY OBITUARY SCRAPBOOK FOR M.F. MAURY, OWNED BY WM. LEWIS MAURY

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Maury, M.F. (Matthew Fontaine Maury). Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts. Approved by Commodore Charles Morris, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography; published by authority of Hon. J.C. Dobbin, Secretary of the Navy. Philadelphia: E.C. and J. Biddle, No. 8 Minor Street, 1855. Seventh Edition — Enlarged and Improved.

Period full leather binding, boards and spine elaborately tooled in gilt with a triple-panel border design, raised bands, gilt-ruled compartments, and gilt title "MAURY'S SAILING DIRECTIONS" to spine. Approximately 11 x 8.5 inches, with a substantial text block including numerous fold-out hydrographic charts, among them "Approaches to Sandy Hook, 1855," drawn by Wm. Poyle and Lieut. B.S. Porter, U.S.N. Front free endpaper signed in period ink, "Wm. Lewis Maury."

CONDITION: Binding shows honest wear consistent with age and handling — rubbing and loss to the leather at the spine ends, corners, and joints, with the front hinge starting; text block and charts sound. Fore-edge and endpapers with expected toning.

OF PARTICULAR INTEREST, the rear portion of the book has been given over by its owner to a contemporary scrapbook of newspaper clippings mourning the death of the volume's author, the celebrated "Pathfinder of the Seas," Matthew Fontaine Maury, USN/CSN, oceanographer, meteorologist, and superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory, who died February 1, 1873. Pasted onto the blank leaves are lengthy obituary notices and remembrances clipped from the New York World, the New York Herald (Feb. 3 and Feb. 10, 1873), and the Journal of Commerce (Feb. 6, 1873), several annotated in period hand with the source and date. The clippings recount Maury's naval career, his wind and current charts, his Confederate service, and his later work in Mexico, and include a memorial poem, "Through the Pass," by Margaret J. Preston, along with a published letter of tribute from a correspondent describing Maury as "the first man of the age."

The owner-signer, Wm. Lewis Maury, was very likely a member of the extended Maury family circle, underscoring the personal significance this volume held for its keeper as a memorial to his celebrated kinsman.

An unusual and moving survival — a working copy of Maury's own sailing directions transformed by a family member into a private memorial to the great oceanographer at the moment of his death.

Ex-Texas Civil War Museum collection.   [ss][ph:L]

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